Review of Their Winter Burn

[Jennifer Coxon]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Their Winter Burn" by Mary Ann Trail.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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Captain Jeffrey Chadwick and his wife Georgina (George) arrived in Boston in deep mid-winter. They had emigrated across the Atlantic to start over with Chadwick as a wine merchant. On their journey, their group grew from one factor (Paddy Cavanaugh) to a household of eight. The enlarged group included Mr and Mrs Cameron, Granny Cameron and two orphaned girls (Margaret and Mairi). The group discovered a dead body when viewing potential lodgings. Signs pointed to murder, and the deceased’s father requested Chadwick to investigate the matter. Chadwick had previous success in solving crimes.

Their Winter Burn by Mary Ann Trail follows the story of Chadwick and his adopted family. They are learning how to settle into life in a very cold, snowy Boston while uncovering the mystery of the murder. I found this book to be a combination of a crime/mystery and historical/other type fiction novel. Whilst the crime and action elements of the book are exciting, I recommend this book more to lovers of historical fiction based on early 19th-century America. The book contains some light sexual content and mostly only borderline profanity. Trail made up borderline profanities for the male characters because so much of their time was around the children, which I found charming.

I liked the author’s focus on the family life of the little group. Trail conveyed very natural relationships and interactions between the group. The Household laughs often at the antics of little Mairi, and the general banter between the characters is both fun and endearing. The author also did an excellent job of rounding out the characters. Everyone had a purpose, a background and their own loveable, or not, personality. I particularly enjoyed learning about George.

I enjoyed the action scenes that took place both in pursuit of the killer and in an epic snowball fight fought with military precision. These were adrenaline-filled scenes, and I raced to discover the outcome. Repeatedly, I did not expect the action or the impact on the characters.

Finally, I liked the author nicely tied up any loose ends in the epilogue whilst leaving a few questions open for a potential sequel. On reading, I did not realise Their Winter Burn was already part of a series, and the book works well as a standalone story. However, my one dislike was that references to the goings-on in previous books in the series felt heavily laboured and overly repeated. I considered there may be a prequel based on this repetition. However, its continued use was unnecessary and annoyed me.

The grammar and typographical errors within the book would benefit from undergoing professional editing. As such, I can only rate the book four out of five stars. My dislikes did not further reduce the rating, and the characters deserve an excellent review.

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Their Winter Burn
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[Cara Wilding]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Their Winter Burn" by Mary Ann Trail.]

Captain Jeffrey Chadwick and his wife Georgina (George) arrived in Boston in deep mid-winter. They had emigrated across the Atlantic to start over with Chadwick as a wine merchant. On their journey, their group grew from one factor (Paddy Cavanaugh) to a household of eight. The enlarged group included Mr and Mrs Cameron, Granny Cameron and two orphaned girls (Margaret and Mairi). The group discovered a dead body when viewing potential lodgings. Signs pointed to murder, and the deceased’s father requested Chadwick to investigate the matter. Chadwick had previous success in solving crimes.

Finally, I liked the author nicely tied up any loose ends in the epilogue whilst leaving a few questions open for a potential sequel. On reading, I did not realise Their Winter Burn was already part of a series, and the book works well as a standalone story. However, my one dislike was that references to the goings-on in previous books in the series felt heavily laboured and overly repeated. I considered there may be a prequel based on this repetition. However, its continued use was unnecessary and annoyed me.

Jennifer, I enjoyed reading your review as always! I would have pegged this book as a romance of some sort based on the title and cover; good thing we got that cleared up! I do love a good murder mystery, and this one sounds delicious with a pursuit of the killer. I'm glad the epilogue tied up loose ends, that would make me reconsider this read. Also good to know that it could be read without having exposure to the previous works. I appreciate how you comment on the things that didn't work for you as well. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this one!

[Jennifer Coxon]

Jennifer, I enjoyed reading your review as always! I would have pegged this book as a romance of some sort based on the title and cover; good thing we got that cleared up! I do love a good murder mystery, and this one sounds delicious with a pursuit of the killer. I'm glad the epilogue tied up loose ends, that would make me reconsider this read. Also good to know that it could be read without having exposure to the previous works. I appreciate how you comment on the things that didn't work for you as well. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this one!

You and me both, Cara, thinking that this would have been a romance from the title and cover. I was aware that wasn't the case before selecting the book though which was helpful, otherwise it would have been quite a different review.